"The Fireclown was originally living down there in secret. We were working on our machines. We needed help- scientists and technicians-so we asked for it, got it. But the scientists told their friends about the Fireclown. They began to ask him about things. He told them. All he did, in the final analysis, was supply an outlet for their emotional demands."
Helen fell silent.
Alan came to a decision.
"I'd like to take that trip," he said "-if Helen can come, too."
"Good!" The Fireclown's resonant voice seemed suddenly gay. "I should like to take you. I'm glad. Yes, glad."
Both Alan and Helen waited for the Fireclown to add to this statement, but they were disappointed. He went and leaned against a bulkhead, his great face bent towards his chest, his whole manner abstracted.
Was he thinking of the trip? Alan wondered. Or had he simply forgotten about them now that they had agreed to go?
Somehow, he felt the latter was the more likely answer.
The Fireclown seemed a peculiar mixture of idiot and intellectual. Alan decided that he was probably insane, but what this insanity might lead to-the destruction of Earth?-could not easily be assessed. He must wait. And perhaps he would learn from the trip, wherever it took them. Mars, possibly, or Ganymede.
CHAPTER TEN
HELEN was getting understandably restless. Five hours had passed and the Fireclown still stood in the position he had taken up against the bulkhead.
Corso and Cornelia Fisher had talked sporadically with Alan, but Helen had refused to join in. Alan felt for her. She had placed all her hopes on gaining information from the Fireclown and, he guessed, she had desperately wanted him to disprove the allegations now being made against him on Earth. But, frustratingly, they were no nearer to getting an explanation; were worse confused, if anything.
If he had been studying any other individual, Alan would have suspected the Fireclown of sleeping with his eyes open. But there was no suggestion of slumber about the Clown's attitude. He was, it seemed, meditating on some problem that concerned him. Possibly the nature of the problem was such that an ordinary man would see no logic or point in solving it.
The Fireclown seemed to exist in his own time-sphere, and his mind was unfathomable.
At last the grotesque giant moved.
"Now," he rumbled, "the Pi-meson will be ready. We have been lucky to find shelter with the monks, for they are probably the only men who can come close to understanding the nature of the ship, and doubtless they will have done their work by now. Come." He moved towards the door.
Alan glanced at Helen and then at the other two. Corso and Cornelia Fisher remained where they were. Helen got up slowly. The Fireclown was already thumping up the corridor before they reached the door.
"I hope you know what you're doing," she whispered. "I'm afraid, Alan. What if his plan is to kill us?"
"Maybe it is." He tried to sound self-possessed. "But he could do that just as easily here as in deep space, couldn't he?"
"There are several ways of dying." She held his hand and he noticed she was shivering. He had never realized before that anyone could be so afraid of death.
Momentarily he felt a sympathy with her fears.
They followed the gaudy figure of the Fireclown until they reached the bay section.
Auditor Kurt was there.
"They have just finished," he told the Fireclown, spinning the wheel of the manually operated airlock. "Your equations were perfectly correct-it was we who were at fault. The field is functioning with one hundred per cent accuracy. Five of us were completely exhausted feeding it. Bias being able to supply those parts was a great stroke of luck."
The Fireclown nodded his thanks and all three stepped through the short tunnel of the airlocks and entered a surprisingly large landing deck. Alan, who had seen the Pi-meson from space, wondered how it could be so big, for a considerable portion of spaceships was taken up with engines and fuel.
Touching a stud, the Fireclown closed the ship's lock. A section of the interior wall slid upwards, revealing a short flight of steps. They climbed the steps and were on a big control deck. The covered ports were extremely large, comprising more than half the area of the walls. Controls varied-some familiar, some not.
And there were many scarcely functional features-rich, red plush couches and chairs, fittings of gold or brass, heavy velvet curtains of yellow and dark blue hung against the ports. It all looked bizarre and faintly archaic, reminding Alan, in a way, of his grandfather's study.
"I shall darken the room," the Fireclown announced. "I can operate the ship better that way. Sit where you will."
The Fireclown did not sit down as Alan and Helen sat together on one of the comfortable couches. He stood at the controls, his huge bulk blotting out half the instruments from Alan's sight. He stretched a hand towards a switch and flicked it up. The lights dimmed slowly and then they were in cold blackness.
Helen gripped Alan's arm and he patted her knee, his mind on other things as a low whining arose from the floor.
Alan sensed tension in the Fireclown's movements heard from the darkness. He tried to analyze them but failed. He saw a screen suddenly light with bright whiteness, color flashed and swirled and they saw a vision of space.
But against the darkness of the cosmos, the spheres which rolled on the screen, flashing by like shoals of multi-colored billiard balls, were unrecognizable as any heavenly bodies Alan had ever seen. Not asteroids by any means, not planets-they were too solid in color and general appearance; they shone, but not with the glitter of reflected sunlight. And they passed swiftly by in hordes.
Moved by the beauty, astonished by the unexpected sight, Alan couldn't voice the questions which flooded into his mind.
In the faint light from the screen the Fireclown's silhouette could be seen in constant motion. The whining had ceased. The spheres on the screen began to jump and progress more slowly. The picture jerked and one sphere, smoky blue in colour, began to grow until the whole screen itself glowed blue. Then it seemed to burst and they flashed towards the fragments, then through them, and saw-a star.
"Sol," commented the Fireclown.
They were getting closer and closer to the sun.
"We'll burn up!" Alan cried fearfully.
"No-the Pi-meson is a special ship. I've avoided any chance of us burning.
See-the flames!"
The flames… Alan thought that the word scarcely described the curling, writhing wonder of those shooting sheets of fire. The control deck was not noticeably warmer, yet Alan felt hot just looking.
The Fireclown was roaring his enigmatic laughter, his arm pointing at the screen.
"There," he shouted, his voice too loud in the confines of the cabin. "There, get used to that for a moment. Look!"
They could not help but look. Both were fascinated, held by the sight. And yet Alan felt his eyes ache and was certain he would be blinded by the brightness.
The Fireclown strode to another panel and turned a knob.
The port coverings began to rise slowly and light flowed in a searing stream into the cabin, brightening everything to an extraordinary degree.
When the ports were fully open Alan shouted his wonder. It seemed they were in the very heart of the sun. Why weren't they made sightless by the glare? Why didn't they burn?
"This is impossible!" Alan whispered. "We should have been destroyed in a second. What is this-an illusion of some sort? Have you hypno-?"
"Be quiet," said the Fireclown, his shape a blob of blackness in the incredible light. "I’ll explain later-if it is possible to make you understand."
Hushed, they let themselves be drawn out into the dancing glare.